Birds, Cats and How Grief Works
(For Susan, the cats who inspired)
Birds are a mess, sometimes.
You can feed them religiously,
as routine as ritual, as devout
as prayer, every day, with care.
They show their thanks
by leaving hulls of sunflower seed
everywhere on the court beneath the feeder
and scattered under foot all around. Hullooo!
Still, you don't seem to mind.
Every other day you take
a large broom and shovel and sweep
the hulls up and into a trash bin,
and when the bin's full, you haul
the whole thing to the street.
The birds make a mess, you make
no fuss. You notice no resistance.
However, let one cat leave behind
the slightest bit of scat or go after
a bird and you're all over that cat,
like Poirot on crime. You sniff out
the culprit, pile up the evidence
(that also goes in the bin), gather
witnesses (mostly your family)
and judge the case without a jury.
You wondered, today, about that,
as you bent over to sweep up hulls.
Like a bolt of lightning it came to you
and you felt small, less tall than the cat.
It has changed your point of view
when it comes to cats. The process
of finding out what that's all about
can be formed by a wee play to follow.
The Wordplay next page
